My name is Brendan. I am in sixth class. I am eleven years old. I live in Cappagh. I have fair hair and blue eyes. I live in a bungalow and we’re getting an extension on to our house. I have a Playstation 2. I play hurling and football with St. Oliver's and I play soccer with Cappoquin. I have five brothers and no sisters. My father coaches us for hurling and football. Mam and Dad are teachers. Dad teaches in Modeligo and Mam teaches in Lismore.

My name is Laurence. I live in Knockeylan Leimybrien Co. Waterford. I live in a two-storey house with eight other people. I have two brothers and two sisters, my mother, father and grandmother. We have a farm and I have two ponies. My father has a lot of horses and ponies. We have some cattle and they had some calves this year. We have a pet calf because her mother died. We have three dogs. Freddie is a golden Labrador and two Jack Russels, Dandy and Max. The three are different. We have three hens and we should be getting more because our ones aren’t good at laying eggs.

The Pony & Trap

When my grandad was young he was walking past his neighbour's house. He saw a pony and trap stopped outside the house. He knew it belonged to another neighbour who was visiting. He took the pony from the trap and placed it the other way round so that when the lady came to go home the pony was facing the wrong way round. She never knew what had happened.

by Lauren

My Pony Jilly I have a new pony on loan from my uncle. She is called Jilly. She is grey. She is seven years old. I feed her every day and night. We go hunting, showjumping and lots of cool stuff. She likes cold and cooked food. She is very fast and we have a stable for her and I love Jilly to bits. By Stephen

The Ford

Henry Ford made a deal with Henry Ferguson, which was sealed with only a handshake. Ferguson had invented the tree-point hitch and ford agreed to put it on his new ford 9n Tractor. This innovative technology endeared Ford's tractors, and in particular the model 9n to his farming customers. This was one of Ford's last major achievements in agricultural technology. He died on the 7 April 1944 & his grandson Henry ford II assumed charge of the company. It is impossible to quantify the impact Henry Ford had not just on the tractor industry with the 1.5 million tractors made by his company in his lifetime but on industry as a whole with his pioneering of mass production and assembly line techniques.
by Jack

Knockmaun Castle

The ruins of Knockmaun castle stand on top of a huge rock, one hundred and fifty feet high above the surrounding bog in the middle of the Decies-within-Drum Hills, situated about 4 miles from Dungarvan. It is beside what is now called the Bog Road. The Brickey River flows beside it. The river, with the bog all around it, as well as a moat and a drawbridge, made it a very strong castle indeed when it was first built. The thickness of the walls of the castle that now remain on top of the rock gives us a good idea of how strongly built it was before it was knocked down by Cromwell. It was built by the Osborne family who were Protestants and supporters of the king, and who were also landlords of the surrounding countryside. It was occupied by Sir Richard Osborne in the time of Cromwell.

by Jack, 6th Class

My granddad is an old man and does not work anymore. Sometimes he tells us stories and tells us about the games he played when he was young. In school at lunch time they played rounders because the playground was to0 small for hurling or football. At home they played hurling on the road. There were very few motor cars and it was safe to play on the road. When they got tired of the hurling they played hide and seek. He liked the game because they could not seek him out. He said they played horse shoes. Each player would have two horse shoes and would throw them at an iron bar driven into the ground. The first to reach 21 is the winner. They often played cricket.

by Kealan, 5th Class.

David is doing a project about Manchester united.

Manchester United Transfers and loans

Bought

·      Evra Monaco-Man Utd

·      Vidic Spartak Moskow-Man utd

·      Van der sar Fulham-Man Utd

·      J.S.Park PSV Eindoven-Man Utd

Sold

·      P.Neville Man Utd-Everton

·      R.Carrol Man Utd-West Ham

Loan

·      J .Spector Man Utd-Charlton

·      L.Miller-Man Utd - Leeds

Negotiation:

·      Messi Barcelona

·      Ballack Bayern Munich

More about United...

Honours:

2 Uefa Champions League

14 Fa cups

32 Premiership Title

8 League Cup

1 Uefa cup

by Kevin, 5th Class

My visit to Poland.... continued

We left Cape Valek after a week. We were sad because we made lots of friends there and had great fun. Next we went to Katowice in Poland. We visited Auschwitz concentration camp while we stayed there. It was a huge camp where Jews were gassed in big chambers. It was really sad and we saw all the shoes and bubs, clothes and suitcases left by people who were there. The guide who talked to us was Jewish and her grandmother was killed there. She does this job to show  how horrible and cruel it would be if something like this ever happened again.

by Ellen, 4th class

A male lion's roar can be heard up to 5 miles away.

• The Term "King of the Beast" is wrong because a lion will run from a lot of animals, including elephants and rhinoceros.

• A group of Lions is called a "Pride"

• A female Lion is called a "Lioness"

• The hunting grounds for a pride of lions can be from 8 to 150 square miles.

• The largest lion ever was almost 11 feet long and weighed nearly 700 pounds.

• A lion's normal life span is 13 years but a lion named "Nero" once lived to the age of 29 in a German zoo.

• Lions rarely eat an entire kill. Hyenas and vultures eat the rest.

• Lionesses hunt in groups. While one group of lions drives the prey to a certain area, another group will wait to ambush the approaching animals.

• Other lionesses in a pride will baby-sit a mom cubs while she goes off to hunt.

• A lioness can run as fast as 35 mph for short distances and can leap more that 30 feet.

• There are only one fourth the number of lions in Africa as there were  40 years ago.

• A lion's eyesight is five times better than a persons, and it can hear prey that is more then a mile away.

• Using their keen sense of smell, lions can tell if prey is nearby and even how long ago it was in the area.

• It may take up to 4 hours for a pride of lions to finish eating.

• A male lion eats first, even though the females catch the prey.

• After eating, a thirsty lion drinks for as long as 20 minutes.

• A captive lion eats about 15 pounds of meat each day, but a wild lion eats only twice a week. * Lions were once thought to be magical animal and were worshipped as gods.

• Lions are the most social of all the cats, living in groups called prides. There can be up to 40 members in a pride with over half of them being cubs and young adults.

• Females will often stay with the pride their entire life, while young males are driven out.

by Liam, 6th Class

Aaron, you asked me to tell you what life was like in Ireland when I was a young lad like you ?

I was born on July 1936 three years before World War 2, which started in 1939 and finished in 1945. Everything was scarce during the war years and for a few years afterwards, especially food which was rationed. Every family was provided with a `Ration Book’ which contained coupons for bread, butter, tea, sugar and flour, which could be used on a weekly basis. Clothes and shoes were also scarce. During the summer we did not wear shoes going to national school.

I started school about the age of six. My father brought me there the first day on the bar of his bicycle. I had to walk there every day after that. I would meet up with the other children and we would walk along together. It was two and a half miles. On certain mornings I would have to gather some kindling and firewood to Iight the school fire and have it lighting when the teacher arrived. It was not an easy job on a wet morning; there was no "Central Heating" there in those days.

There were no cars around when I was young; just a few in the towns and cities. We had to take bus if wanted go Dungarvan or Clonmel. Many people used bicycles to go to work in those days, others walked or went on horseback. Some families went to mass by pony and trap which would carry four adults and a few children. We had no electricity in rural Ireland in those days, only candles and paraffin-oil lamps. We had no telephones either, we had to go to the local Post Office to make a call. There were no tractors also. All the farm work was done by horses. Cows were milked by hand as we had no milking machines.

When I finished in Modeligo School I cycled nine miles to the C.B.S. in Dungarvan to further my education. We played football and hurling. We were not allowed to play soccer or rugby. We were told they were foreign games and should not be played by the Irish.

Your Grandad Paddy                        (Researched by Aaron, 6th Class)

Thank you for visiting our website. Our names are Laurence and Brendan. We are in 6th class, and we are the current editors.  Also, just to finish off, you might like to take a look back to this time last year.